Monday, August 19, 2013

If it wasn't for Georgette Heyer...

Yes, here it is, another Heyer related post (better get used to it, as I'm happily rediscovering more and more of her books)... I sometimes feel a bit self conscious about my love of Heyer - people can be a bit sniffy about her so it's tempting to think of her as a guilty pleasure,  but then I'll be damned if I feel guilty about reading a writer who has given me so much pleasure over the years. I've always been interested in History, always loved reading,  a complete lack of skill in trying to learn other languages would always have pushed me to British history and I would always have discovered Jane Austen (although it was very specifically Heyer's mentions of Austen which led me to discover her when I did). My degree was in History of Art, my undergraduate dissertation about the rival art collections of Wellington and Napoleon (the difference is that Wellington as the victor got to keep his booty including a 3 meter high statue of a naked Napoleon holding an orb with a winged victory on it by Canova. Hard to imagine that Wellington would have really wanted such an object, but it still stands in a stairwell in Apsley house) was in partly the fruition of an interest sparked by reading Heyer's army based novels. For me, and doubtless very many others she's been a gateway novelist, not to the endless 'Regencies' which are so often second or third rate imitations of what she dis so well, but to the classics that she was undoubtedly familiar with and many of which she mentions in her novels.

A quick trawl around my shelves has resulted in a sizable pile of books which owe their place on my shelf because of Heyer, I haven't included non fiction, and could have included Elizabeth Gaskell who I started reading when I was looking for a Heyer replacement. I haven't read all of these books but one day I will (well maybe not 'The Monk' which I started once and didn't really get on with). I did actually read Richardson's 'Pamela' - I don't particularly recommend it, Fanny Burney and Maria Edgeworth are both terrific and it occurs to me that I really should read 'Vanity Fair' again. It also occurs to me that no other writer has had quite such an influence on my book buying habits as Heyer has had. (I'm also thinking that finding the books was considerably more fun than putting them back will be.)  

13 comments:

  1. For the longest time I didn't know anyone else who read Heyer, except one sister - but that's also partly because I was surrounded with non-readers until I got to college. The other sister, a literature major, has always refused to even try her on the grounds that "all her books are alike" - a statement so ridiculous from someone who has never read one that I refuse to argue any more about it. I do plan to give her oldest daughter one soon though. Finding an on-line Heyer discussion group was so wonderful, especially when her books were still a bit hard to find in the US (until first Harlequin & then Arrow began reprinting them).

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    1. It's what the internet is best for, I occasionally think I might have grown out of her books and then realise that no, I haven't.

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  2. I simply adore Heyer and hate it when I go to the libray and they are bunged in with the Mills and BOon. SHe is a great writer, I have every single one of her books and read and re-read over and over again. Her book An Infamous Army has one of the best descriptions of the Battle of Waterloo ever. My favourite is A Civil Contract a quieter less romantic but beautifully written book, one of her later ones, and I read and re-read over and over again. Two main female characters in this title are very similar to the Dashwood sisters in Sense and S. I defy anybody who disses the Divine Georgette.

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    1. I've just finished reading A Civil Contract again, and must admit it's not my absolute favourite, but otherwise I obviously agree with everything you say there Elaine :)

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  3. If you nip over to my blog and enter Heyer in the search engine you will find a mass of posts on this great lady

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  4. I came to her quite late (last ten years) and I was hooked from the word go. The trouble is finding someone else who can match her for bringing together all the elements I like in a book!

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    1. I think Angela Thirkell is the closest I've come to matching Heyer but Heyer is still better!

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  5. I've been hooked from the age of 15 (I'm 58 now and still have all her books!).

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    1. Are they still your original copies? Mine are all about 25 years old and beginning to look very, very tatty, these new copies put them to shame.

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  6. I've enjoyed GH's books since I was a teenager (and I include her detective novels in that). But a couple of months ago I read 'Frederica', and although we started well, I began to get impatient (esp. with the brothers) and skip more and more. Now I'm worried that I'm 'over' her. Ladies, help! Please tell me that Frederica was not one of her best and that all is not lost.

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  7. Frederica is the last in the pile from Arrow that I have to read and if I'm honest it doesn't much appeal to me as I too think I'll find the brothers a bit tiresome. I think if you're in the mood for Heyer the books where she's best are the sillier ones, or the ones where she throws in a bit of murder and mayhem, also I like smugglers. I'm sure all is not lost and that next time you're looking for something undemanding and fun she'll do the job for you.

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    1. That's heartening, Hayley. I notice you've written about The Grand Sophy, which I remember enjoying, and you are quite right about murder, mayhem, highwaypeople (!) etc. I shall put it down to the wrong book at the wrong time. I've had a lot of that lately. I seem to be having a long-term reading slump, most annoying.

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    2. good luck with finding something to suit. I normally hit short stories when I feel like that, or find myself reading a lot more newspapers.

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